Human Rights

With the proliferation of human rights institutions over the past half century and the centrality of human rights in current debate topics, human rights standards have become crucial touchstones of contemporary ethics and politics. The program in human rights seeks to provide the basic insights and skills needed for young women to become cogent, life-long advocates for human rights.

This interdisciplinary program is designed to be pursued alongside a major in one of the departments with a disciplinary or area studies focus. These include, but are not limited to Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Comparative Literature, English, French, German, History, Italian, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Slavic, Sociology, Spanish, and Women's Studies.

The Barnard Human Rights Program mourns the passing of J. Paul Martin, who passed away on January 7, 2024. At Barnard, Professor Martin was the Director of the Human Rights Program until 2019, a role he took on after his retirement as the founding director of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Human Rights. Professor Martin’s contributions to human rights education included both his work in higher education at Columbia and Barnard and his work on providing training and resources to human rights advocates around the world. Although Paul’s time at Barnard was a small part of a career full of accomplishments and contributions to the field of human rights and human rights education, his work was foundational to the thriving Human Rights Program that Barnard has today. As a kind and generous scholar and teacher, Paul demonstrated to Barnard students that it is possible to make contributions to the field of human rights as activists, scholars, and concerned citizens of the world. Paul’s legacy will certainly include the work that his former students continue to do in the world to support and protect human rights.